BLM Sets 'Model' Leasing Plan in Utah, Jewell Says, But Industry Wary

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last Friday called out a new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) master leasing plan (MLP) for federal lands in east-central Utah as a model for how communities can balance oil/natural gas development with protection of iconic landscapes such as the lands around Moab, UT. The plan begins a 90-day comment period Friday, but some industry sources are already calling the MLP redundant. Separately, Jewell and BLM noted they planned to initiate two other Utah MLPs -- San Rafael Desert (524,854 acres) and Cisco Desert (320,000 acres) -- this fall, which will bring the federal agency's completed MLPs to nearly a dozen in the resource-rich states of Colorado and Wyoming, in addition to Utah. This is BLM's first MLP in Utah, although the planning process was developed five years ago as part of what the Obama administration has labeled as "sweeping" oil/gas leasing reforms that at the time were needed to reverse sustained community protests and litigation that were threatening to undo the BLM leasing program...more